Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, we continue with the "Nightmare on Elm Street" series by taking a look at the second entry that came out in 1985. That movie "A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge".
Now, for those of you reading this for the first time, I reviewed the first "Nightmare on Elm Street" movie last week, and I ended up loving it. I hadn't seen any of the "Nightmare on Elm Street" films until then, and I'm happy to see that the first film still holds up really well today. At least, to me, it does.
So now, we're on to the second movie, and this is where I have to bring up something to you guys. You see, when I did my Reaction & Review on "A Nightmare on Elm Street", I mentioned that while the first film is almost universally loved by fans, I haven't heard very much about the sequels from them. And in the case of the second movie, I've heard one person in particular say that it's the worst entry in the entire series. Which is a bold claim to make because, usually, when it comes to horror movie sequels, most of them won't usually start to degrade in quality until the 4th or 5th movie of their franchise, assuming they even make it that far. It happened with the "Phantasm" series, it happened with "Wishmaster", "Puppet Master" came out unscathed from it, and "Killjoy" was just unwatchable from the first two movies alone.
So, while it is possible that this movie could still suck, I'm curious to find out if it's really as bad as that person has made it out to be. I'm hoping that it's still pretty good, or at least decent, but I won't know for sure yet, unless I shut up and I push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, ladies and gentlemen, it's time to kick back relax, and check out "A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge".
6 minutes later
Wait, so upon hearing their son, Jesse, screaming after waking up from Freddy's nightmare, the parents don't even bother to check up on him to ask if he's okay or anything? What the fuck is wrong with them?! I mean, they just act so casual about it, too. 'Oh, he's just having a nightmare'. Like, seriously? Even if this is somehow a common occurrence, you should still at least check up on him to see if he's okay! Jesus...we're not even 10 minutes into the movie yet and I've already run into a logic issue. Though for now, I'll just pass this off as bad parenting on their part.
10 minutes later
OK, so they *now* decide to check up on him after Jesse woke up a second time. All right, well, at least they seem concerned for him, so I'll take back what I said about their bad parenting. At least, for now, anyway.
2 minutes later
OK, I have a question here. How often is it that classrooms kept snakes as pets in school? I'm only asking because I genuinely thought that snake was part of Jesse's dream, but nope, somehow, someone was able to put a snake on him without getting caught by the teacher. Just seems kinda weird to me, you know what I mean?
4 minutes later
Wait, so Nancy Thompson, the main character of the first movie, left her diary in the home of where she formerly stayed at. I should mention, by the way, that Jesse now occupies her room after Nancy's family, I guess, either moved out or was killed by Freddy Krueger. I don't know which, to be exact, but the fact that her diary was left behind just seems really odd to me.
8 minutes later
OK...well, I was gonna comment about how kinda stupid this scene was...and then that bird just fucking exploded. I gotta say, that's certainly something different. Not totally what I was expecting, but at least it's something new.
13 minutes later
OK, I have another question here that I'm not sure will actually get answered or not, but I'm still gonna ask it anyway. So, Jesse's father knew about what happened to Nancy and her family after Jesse's family bought the house. And it's been stated at least a couple of times already that Nancy lost her mind and her mother "killed herself", in a matter of speaking. I'm not gonna go into the latter issue, because it's obvious what actually happened to her. But what exactly happened to Nancy, apart from "losing her mind"? Did she take her own life sometime after the first movie or did she get institutionalized at some point? I'm really curious about this, guys, and I'm not sure if the movie's ever gonna explain that at all. It should, but I don't know if the film's actually going to address that.
16 minutes later
Well, guys, um...even though this movie has been a little on the dull side, I will say that the effects here are still really fucking good. And also, I was gonna comment on Freddy not being in the movie for quite a while, even though it has his name in the title, until he actually did that by coming out of Jesse's body in a really cool and gruesome way. So, at least this movie's starting to get interesting again.
The Review
Well, guys, that was "A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge". Let me go ahead and shut the movie off now...OK. So, um...where to even start here? Well, I suppose I can say this much. This movie is definitely nowhere near as good as the first movie was. Now is it as awful as I've heard it was? Well, I wouldn't go that far. At least, not until I've seen more of these movies. But at least in comparison to the first one, I would say the first trumps this film easily, no questions asked.
Why don't we just start by talking about the movie itself here. I'm gonna start with writing. And the first thing I need to talk about is the film's biggest plothole. And to do this, I need to talk a little bit about the film's plot. So, Jesse and his family have taken over the house that Nancy Thompson was staying sometime after the events of the first movie. And for some reason, Freddy chooses Jesse to essentially do his killing for him while still kinda being in his dream world. Believe me when I tell you guys that the story in this movie makes no sense at all. First of all, I need to address the title of this movie, specifically, the subtitle "Freddy's Revenge". What exactly is Freddy getting revenge for? Is it because of Nancy Thompson? Well, I would've believed that if not for the fact that she doesn't appear in this movie whatsoever, outside of being mentioned that she went crazy after what happened in the first movie. And also, this movie doesn't really explain anything else about what happened to Nancy beyond what I've already touched upon for you guys.
Now the second thing I need to ask is why does he need Jesse for him to do his killing? Is it because he needs a male host's body in order for him to pull it off? Well, by that logic, he could've done this with Jesse's Dad and it probably would've made very little difference. Or is it because he occupies Nancy's room and he just chose him out of sheer randomness? I don't know why exactly he needs Jesse, since it's never really explained why he needs him to do his dirty work. If the entire goal is to get people afraid of Freddy Krueger, then it's kind of a stupid plan since the only people who are aware of him are Jesse and Lisa. No one else seems to be aware of him, unless the story about Krueger is being intentionally covered up. Which wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility considering he did get acquitted and all by a technicality, which ultimately lead to his death.
But that aside, there is one other big problem with this story, which is if Freddy can do over half the shit he did in this movie, then why the hell didn't he do this kind of thing in the first movie? I mean, if he can possess someone's body like the way he did with Jesse, then why didn't he do any of this shit with any of the characters in the first movie when he had the chance? I can, maybe, forgive the possibility of them not using Nancy because, I guess, it would look awkward if he possessed a girl or some kind of shit like that. If he had picked Glen from the first movie, then he probably would've accomplished as much as he did in this film. At least, that's my thought process anyway. But at the same time, it would also undermine his character, like it was here, because the shit he pulls off, while interesting at times, it also comes off as rather goofy and stupid, too. Like the shit involving that bird that exploded earlier in the movie.
One other thing that bothered me about Freddy is, well, the lack of Freddy in this film. See, even though he is the star of this franchise, and also has his first name on the front cover of the movie, he's really not in this film all that long. And I know that was the case for the first movie, but it worked there because it brought some kind of mystique to the character that made you want to see more of him. In this movie, though, while while they're still trying to keep some of that mystique, it doesn't really work as well because they kind of hold off his appearance for a little too long. Now granted, when he *is* on screen, the movie starts to get interesting again, but on the long sequences when he's not there, it just kinda makes the movie a little dull to watch. Which I didn't think I would ever say about this film franchise, especially when we're only on the second movie, too.
Now I will say, despite everything involving Freddy and his stupid ass plan, the movie is still okay. I mean, sure, it's definitely a step down when it comes to the writing, but at least the film is still mildly entertaining. Our characters are, admittedly, nowhere near as interesting as the first movie was. Most of them are kinda stereotypical teenagers while Jesse is fighting the paranoia of losing his mind because Freddy is itching ever closer to taking over him completely. Which is honestly the only thing interesting about his character, really. But other than that, he's still pretty bland, overall. He's definitely not as interesting as Nancy was, at least in terms of being a main character, anyway. And Freddy himself, well, he's not as cool as he was in the previous movie. He still has his moments here, such as when he opened himself out of Jesse's body. But aside from that, some of the stuff he does in this film is not as interesting as it was in the first movie. But I'll get more into that when I go over special effects.
So, writing in this movie is definitely a step down from the first film. And the characters are mostly in the same boat, as well. Acting here is mostly pretty decent, though I gotta say that Lisa's actress in this movie is kinda terrible. I can see in some glimpses that she's trying, but the problem here is that she doesn't really try hard enough to emote. Which, if you compared it to Nancy's actress from the first movie, she definitely had more of a range in her voice because she had more to work with. Lisa's actress, while, again, she's trying desperately to make her dialogue work, it doesn't really work as much because her acting is just really kinda shit. Everyone else, though, I can say at least turns in a pretty good showing. And even though Robert Englund isn't in the movie all that much, he's still very good as Freddy Krueger and is able to do some fun shit whenever he's on screen. So yeah, for the most part, the acting here is pretty good, save for Lisa's actress.
Let's talk about special effects next. I'm gonna say that the special effects are still very top notch, even for a low budget of $3 million dollars. The makeup effects on Freddy Krueger are still amazing, and the blood effects are still really good, as well. However, this does present one slight problem here. The kills in this movie that Freddy does are incredibly weak. A lot of the creativity involving the kills seem a little watered down, when compared to the first movie. The most creative kill you get here is when Freddy kills Jesse's school coach, which really isn't saying much because it's still rather weak. Another kill I can recall happening is when Freddy chokes one of Jesse's friends to death, which, to be fair, is something a little similar to what he pulled off in the first movie. The only difference is that that he used a noose to choke somebody to death with. Which was definitely more interesting than what he pulled off here since he only used his free hand, and also stabbed him right towards the end, too. But yeah, the kills in this movie are also a huge step down from the first one, which is really disappointing to see.
Camerawork in this movie is really good. Lighting here is lit fine. The sound-mixing here is also good. The music here is also pretty good, too. So, on a technical standpoint, this movie is at least consistent with itself. At least so far anyway.
Ultimately, guys, when everything is said and done, am I able to recommend "A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge"? Kind of, yes. As long as you're able to overlook how stupid Freddy's plan really is, then the movie is still pretty decent. It's certainly nowhere near as good as the first movie was, however, I also kinda figured it wouldn't be as good as the first film anyway, seeing as how that first movie set the bar really high on how great it was. That may also be the case for the other movies going forward, but I don't really know yet. I still have two more of these movies to go for now. But as for the case with Nightmare 2, I can still say it's worth a watch if you like seeing more of Freddy Krueger in action. Just don't expect a whole lot from him here, seeing as how he's not in the movie for all that long. Now, as for myself, I'm gonna go and watch something different. I think, maybe, I'll just go and watch something like, uh...you know what? Seeing as how I just got finished watching a kinda decent horror movie sequel, I'm gonna go and watch a better horror movie sequel. I think I'll go and watch something like "Wishmaster 2: Evil Never Dies". While it may not be as good as the first film was, I still really liked it. So I'm gonna go and do that next once I get done with this review.
Anyway, guys, with that, we come to the close of another Reaction & Review. Until next time, ladies and gentlemen, take care, and I will see you all later. Peace.
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